We are living at a time of profound technological, social and environmental changes. These changes are transforming the societies, and at the same time they challenge the education systems and put question on how do we educate and empower the next generations? How do we empower young people to succeed in 21st century and solve the rapid changes we are facing? Developing and promoting entrepreneurship education has been one of the key policy objectives of the EU institutions and Member States for many years. Too often, the value of entrepreneurship is only considered in economic value, creating profits for the individuals at (high) cost for the people or the environment. Making profits by doing harm to people and nature disengages young people more than it empowers them. If we have entrepreneurship education to only teach young people how to make profits, we invest in sustaining and empowering unjust societies. Social entrepreneurship by contrast is explicitly about creating value for others: economic, social and environmental value. This is the entrepreneurship the world needs more. There is growing body of evidence suggesting that young people place increasing importance on values and ethical practices: we see the rise of zero waste generations, green activists. Entrepreneurship education is essential not only to shape the mind-sets of young people, but also to provide the skills, knowledge and attitudes that are central to developing an entrepreneurial culture and new set of role models. SEED project seeks to educate and empower students and suggest that those who pursue social, environmental and economic value will be considered the entrepreneurs of the 21st century. SEED project focuses on delivering tailored upgraded programs for promotion of Social Entrepreneurship to high school students that are enrolled in the school subject "Entrepreneurship" in the three respective countries (North Macedonia, Croatia and Lithuania). The project upgrades its objectives by providing safe space for the students to run Virtual Social Enterprises and empowers them to receive and boost their employability skills by being leaders in organizing events in real life: organizing meetups with successful (Social) Entrepreneurs from their community, Silent Auctions and Talent Shows for Fundraising, community mobilization as sustainability approach (establishing ALUMNI networks at school) etc. The project modules are designed by NGOs that will provide new learning framework, experiential learning that is aligned with the transformed strategic environment and create new value in the education process.
Through the SEED project young people learned the essential skills for running a business but also learned about philanthropy, creativity, leadership and teamwork. Our belief was that if students were equipped with modern skills and motivation, they could prosper in the modern world. They could find solutions to our most complex problems via using business models. Our project has adapted a methodology for developing social entrepreneurs who learn from each other and become a part of the EU mosaic. As well, we provided support to the schools in helping them to build stronger communities and bring power and trust to local people. By offering a safe space for students to run SE as Virtual Companies, this project upgraded its objectives and empowered students to boost their employability skills through organizing events in real life: mapping SE, organizing "SEED talks" based on TEDx, community events with SE from their region, making decisions about donations, creating school alumni clubs, etc. The name of the project came organically, since we also prepared promotional material prepared by one local social enterprise that produces plantable cards with seeds. The cards are made from recycled paper and can contain seed of Mose rose.
The rationale behind the SEED Project was the success story of the long term partnership we have with the schools and the know-how that was provided by the civil society sector. In this project, lessons learned from an original idea were combined with broader perspectives. Our original idea was that students should have at least one entrepreneurial experience before leaving compulsory education, either in primary or secondary education. A key goal of the SEED project was to introduce entrepreneurship education even closer to the students while adding an extremely valuable added value - teaching them first-hand the new business model of Social Entrepreneurship as part of the business classes in the 3 schools (Croatia, Lithuania, North Macedonia) and exposing them to business communities. Developing and promoting entrepreneurship education has been one of the key policy objectives of the EU institutions and Member States for many years. Making profits by doing harm to people and nature disengages young people more than it empowers them. SE by contrast is explicitly about creating value for others: economic, social and environmental value. SEED project was designed to enable students to become future Social Entrepreneurs.